


out of order

by Lexie



Category: Days of Our Lives
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-04
Updated: 2013-01-04
Packaged: 2017-11-23 14:02:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/622979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lexie/pseuds/Lexie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The next time Will decides that he needs to get away from Salem for a few days, he's definitely springing for a fancy five-star hotel, college student budget or no college student budget. He'd bet that elevators don't break down at the Ritz-Carlton.</p>
            </blockquote>





	out of order

**Author's Note:**

  * For [WhatBecomesOfYou](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhatBecomesOfYou/gifts).



"Whoa," Will says in the instant after the elevator grinds to a shuddery halt. 

The lights flicker then come back on like a bad horror movie, so fast that the smile on Sonny's face hasn't even fully faded yet. He looks as startled as Will feels.

Will waits for another couple of seconds, automatically looking up at the ceiling (he's not sure why -- like he can see through it to check on the elevator cables? probably not his smartest instinct ever, he thinks), practically holding his breath, but the elevator doesn't so much as twitch.

"Unexpected," says Sonny. He sounds as calm as usual, though his hand is suddenly digging into Will's. "Unless this is all a part of the grand master plan."

"Uh, no," says Will, leaning over and tapping a couple of buttons on the elevator panel. Each of them lights up as he hits it but there's no movement. He hits the button to open the doors, and -- surprise! -- nothing happens then, either. "No, getting stuck in an elevator was definitely not part of my plan for a romantic weekend away."

"It could be romantic," Sonny says. "Intimate space, plenty of privacy -- crappy lighting, though."

Will laughs, his finger hovering over the red alarm button. "I'm sure the elevator-design company will get right on that." He instinctively glances up at the ceiling one more time, but still, nothing. He pushes the button. 

He was half-expecting some kind of blaring alarm, but instead, there's silence -- just his and Sonny's breathing, and the distant sound of laughter somewhere else in the hotel. "Well, that was anticlimactic," he says, and Sonny makes a soft noise that sounds amused. Will starts to glance back toward him, but a male voice suddenly crackles out of the intercom.

"Security," the guy says. "I'm seeing the alarm in elevator two -- anybody there?"

"Yeah, hi," Will says, leaning on the button, "we're in the elevator between--" He glances at the numbers above the doors, "the sixth and seventh floors, and it's not moving."

There's another crackle, louder this time, and it takes Will a second to realize that it was the security guy sighing. "Thought so," he says. "I already called the technician; should be able to have somebody here within an hour. Everybody okay in there?"

"Uh, yeah!" Will quickly glances at Sonny, who shoots him a wry thumbs-up. "Yeah, we're good."

"Great," says Security. "Sorry about this. That elevator's a menace."

The next time Will decides that he needs to get away from Salem for a few days, he's definitely springing for a fancy five-star hotel, college student budget or no college student budget. He'd bet that elevators don't break down at the Ritz-Carlton.

In the meantime, he doesn't know what exactly to say to somebody who's admitting that they knew this was an issue and still allowed people to use the elevator, so he goes, "No problem?" and makes a quizzical, bemused face at the intercom.

"Somebody'll be there soon," Security promises, and then the intercom goes dead.

"So, an hour, huh?" Will says, stepping back and turning to Sonny. "What were you saying about an intimate setting?" He's halfway into a jokey eyebrow wiggle when he registers that Sonny hasn't moved from the spot where he was standing when the elevator first made ugly noises and then stopped, and he still has a hand clutching the railing. Something's not right in his expression. Will squints at him, his smile falling away. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," Sonny says. "I just -- I don't like being stuck in elevators."

"Does anyone?" Will asks, smiling. He takes another step to put himself in front of Sonny; the second that Will moves, Sonny shuts his eyes tightly. Will feels his heart clench in his chest. "Hey," he says, startled and softer, "Sonny?" and he takes his hand out of his jacket pocket and reaches for Sonny's elbow.

Sonny cracks one eye open, then the other. "I know in the logical part of my brain that it's not happening, but I'd _swear_ this thing sways when you move."

"--Okay; okay, I get that," he says. He runs his hand up and down Sonny's arm, the fabric of his jacket sliding smoothly under his fingers. "So ... we won't move." He makes what's hopefully an encouraging face at Sonny, and, after a minute, Sonny smiles back. "We'll stand here and wait, for a little while. And maybe talk about how you can climb the Himalayas but you're scared of elevators."

"I'm not scared of elevators," Sonny says. "Like I said, I just don't like being stuck in 'em."

"How often do you get stuck in elevators?" Will asks, and he feels his eyebrows rise sharply when Sonny looks like he has to think about it. "Wow, I was completely kidding; has this actually happened to you before??"

"Twice," he says.

" _Twice?_ "

"One time in Houston, we were visiting my dad at work in this crazy tall building, and me and Alex ran ahead of my mom," says Sonny. Will smiles, more with one side of his mouth than the other. He lets his hand rest on Sonny's shoulder. "We jumped in the elevator _right_ before the doors closed and then it got stuck a couple floors down. It was this," he holds out his hand, palm up, "huge glass wall, right in front of us. The building was one of those skyscrapers that's so tall that it's designed to sway in the wind and we were on, like, the 50th floor, so..."

"You guys freaked," Will guesses.

"Hid in the corner crying til they finally managed to pry the doors open," Sonny confirms, wry, and Will smiles and squeezes his shoulder. 

"We can hide in the corner and cry, if it'll make you feel better," he says solemnly.

"Shut up!" Sonny laughs. "Here I am, telling you about my childhood trauma, and you're makin' fun of me; real nice."

"I thought I was being very sensitive!" Will says, and he lets himself stagger back a heavy step, laughing, as Sonny gives him a light, playful shove. The fact that Sonny doesn't react to him moving around the elevator makes Will feel pretty good about his powers of distraction. "Is this really that much scarier than mountain-climbing?" he asks. "I've seen your pictures. Hanging on a rope over a pit full of ice? Really?"

"When I'm climbing, I'm in control." Sonny looks a little less uneasy, a little more engrossed in their conversation, but he still has one hand on the rail. "Sure, there's avalanches and frostbite and equipment failure, but at the end of the day, I can help myself. Can't help myself here." He shrugs. Sonny's the only person Will has ever met who could be breezy and good-natured even while kind of freaked out. "I don't know; I guess I like being the master of my own destiny."

Will doesn't let himself wince. He doesn't let his face shift away from amused concern. It's a regret-free weekend, away from Salem and bad (good? _confusing_ ) decisions and spiraling obsession over how much control he will or won't have. He's going to have fun, with Sonny. He's not going to do this again; not right now. 

"Okay," Will says, half-satisfied with how steady he sounds. Slowly: "Control. Got it." He rests a hand at the back of Sonny's neck. He glances up at the ceiling again, for a different reason this time. "Think there's a camera in here?"

Sonny stares at him for a couple of seconds, then starts laughing. "That's hot," he says, still laughing, "but, like, the worst idea ever right now. Seriously."

"The worst idea _ever_?" Will needles. "That's pushing it. Come on, there've gotta be worse. Like -- whoever came up with the blanket with the sleeves." He reaches out with his free hand and tugs lightly at Sonny's jacket cuff as he says _sleeves_.

"What, the Snuggie? No way," Sonny says. "Don't knock it til you try it."

"Oh my gosh, do you have a secret Snuggie collection?" Will asks, laughing.

His question overlaps Sonny's cheerful defense. "I'm just saying, they get a bad ra--" 

Something far overhead, in the elevator shaft, groans loudly. They both stop laughing and freeze. Uncle Austin and Aunt Carrie took Will skiing a couple times in Switzerland, and that noise sounded, Will thinks, like the kind of rusty scrape that rickety old chairlifts (chairlifts that he'd had to be coaxed onto) had made. They're both silent, listening. 

"It's fine," Will says, finally. He looks at Sonny, whose face is set with nervous tension. Will grips the back of his neck. "I'm sure it's fine."

"Yeah. Yeah, definitely," he answers, but Will can see that his knuckles are white in his hold on the railing.

"So ... the first time you got stuck in an elevator, you were in Texas," Will says, slowly stroking his thumb through the short hair at the nape of Sonny's neck. "What was the second time?"

"London," says Sonny, and Will can tell from his expression that he knows very well what Will's doing and he's gratefully going along with it. "Mountain climbing is such an expensive hobby that I kind of had to accept my family's help for that part, but I was _determined_ that I was gonna pay my own way for everything else I did. So I was staying in this incredibly shady hostel in Hackney; every cliché creepy thing you can think of, this place had it."

"Bed bugs?" he guesses, wrinkling his nose and playing like he's going to step away, and Sonny laughs and grabs his belt before he can go far. They're suddenly grinning at each other again.

"That was pretty much the only thing they were missing," he says. "They had this rustbucket of an elevator and I _knew_ I shouldn't take it, but it was four in the morning and I'd had, uh -- shall we say, a little bit of over-imbibing--"

Will laughs.

"--so I decided the stairs were gonna be too much work."

"Aaaand you got stuck," says Will.

"Me and these two French guys who didn't speak much English," Sonny confirms. "And then the emergency phone didn't work and none of us could get cell reception, so we ended up sitting there for two hours before one of them finally tried to light a cigarette and set off the fire alarm. _That_ did it."

"Wow," he says, jocular, "I'm feeling better about our elevator already."

He laughs. "Yeah, in comparison, this is great, trust me." From the way Sonny smiles at him, Will knows he's not just talking about amenities. His eyes are bright and he still has a hand at Will's hip. "And what about you, anyway? Aren't you supposed to be scared of heights, dude?"

"Oh, I am," Will assures him. "Put me in something like that glass elevator in Houston and I'll freak; humans were never meant to be able to see how far above the ground we are."

"Let me get this straight -- you actually feel _better_ because this is a tiny claustrophobic space where we can't see what's going on?"

Will pretends to think about it. "Yep, pretty much."

"I'm dating a weirdo," Sonny tells him, but he's laughing and he presses a warm kiss to the corner of Will’s mouth, so Will doesn't take a whole lot of offense.

"Oh, I’m -- _I’m_ a weirdo?” he asks, eyebrows raised playfully, as Sonny leans back again. "Coming from the guy who keeps cough syrup in the fridge?"

"That's just practical," he says, and he pulls at Will's scarf. "That stuff already tastes bad; you really wanna make it worse by drinking it lukewarm?"

"Yeah, _o_ kay." Will laughs, and then Sonny laughs a little bit, too, when Will slides his hand up into his hair and gently tugs. "It's gonna be fine," Will tells him, and a smile blooms across Sonny's face. Will is never never going to get used to Sonny looking at him like that, happy and warm and private. It's like an addiction. "That security guard who clearly hates his life is gonna get this thing moving again, and then we'll be _exactly_ on time for our reservations at the restaurant Kinsey recommended--"

"Wait, Kinsey recommended it?" says Sonny. "Oh, God."

"Hey, I Googled it," he defends good-naturedly, "and it actually looks good. So if you're done _criticizing_ ," he lightly shakes Sonny's head with his grip on his hair, drawing another laugh out of him, "we'll have dinner and you won't take a single call from the coffee shop, and then we'll go to Daley Plaza to see the tree all lit up before they take it down next week."

"All of which requires us _not_ turning into pancakes on the floor of the elevator shaft," Sonny says with a self-aware smile. "I get your point."

"Wow, a little morbid," he draws his mouth into a bemused smile that Sonny returns, "but yeah, accurate, yeah." He runs his fingers through Sonny's hair, touches the tip of his ear, and promises again, "It'll be fine."

Sonny does this thing sometimes, with his face, that Will can never describe even to himself; it's like he crumples with pure happiness. It always makes Will's throat feel tight, in a good way. He's doing it now. "Thank you," Sonny says. "For talking through," he waves his free hand in a gesture that Will reads as 'the elevator disaster,' " _this_ , and for the whole weekend. I feel like I can't remember the last time I left classes and the coffee house and everything, for this long."

"Uh, I don't know if I'd thank me; I'm the one that got us stuck in an elevator."

"Seriously," Sonny says, and he's looking at him with those big earnest eyes that have left Will feeling like such an _asshole_ for the last month and a half, "you went to all this trouble, and it's really great, Will."

"Oh," says Will, feeling the guilt creep in again, "oh, no; it's not like it's a big deal or anything--"

"No, it is," he says firmly, holding Will's gaze. "It's awesome." His happiness is contagious; Will starts to smile, too, helplessly, and even more when Sonny finally lets go of the railing and cups Will's face in both hands so he can draw him into a long, soft kiss.

"Well," Will says, when they part for a minute, "I mean, I guess if you insist," and Sonny laughs quietly as he angles in for another kiss.

They're still at it when somebody bangs on the other side of the elevator door. "Anybody home?" calls a muffled voice. "Security!"

"Oh thank God," says Sonny against Will's mouth, and Will puffs a laugh. He raises his voice. "Yeah, could you _please_ get us out of here?" He looks at Will. "Not that this hasn't been fantastic, but--"

"No no, I'm with you," he assures him, stepping back. "From now on, we can take the stairs."

Will says, "After you," when Security wedges the door open with a crowbar. The look that Sonny shoots him is just about the most nakedly _grateful_ expression Will has ever been on the receiving end of. Will shifts his weight under the force of it and squeezes Sonny's hand, then lets go.

The Ritz-Carlton probably would have been nice, but if they'd somehow managed to stay in the Ritz-Carlton, they wouldn't have been offered the presidential suite in official apology for being stuck in a hotel elevator for 45 minutes. It's definitely a huge bonus for Will's wallet and for the pictures of the Chicago skyline that Sonny takes with his phone late that night, Will lazily wrapped around him from behind.

"I'm never gonna get a steady picture if you keep doing that," Sonny says, not sounding the least bit bothered about it. He's still holding his phone up to the enormous picture window, the city lights spread out beneath them. 

Will shrugs and tucks his smile against the back of Sonny's shoulder. He presses a kiss to Sonny's bare shoulderblade and the camera-sound clicks again. "How's that one?" he asks, even though he can already see over Sonny's shoulder that it's another blurry mess, pinpoints of light streaking together.

"Perfect," Sonny says, and Will thinks he would have stayed in that elevator all night, in a creepy hostel in London, in a cardboard box in the pouring rain, if it meant he got to have this.


End file.
